


Dog Problems

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Puppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-29 23:48:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8510467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: Bellamy had no plans to get a dog, but it's Clarke's idea, and she has a specific dog.There's no way he's saying no to that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> la la la la la I can't hear you

Bellamy is going to regret this.

"Come on, you can't say no to this face," Clarke wheedles. She's leaning down, her own face on the same level as the puppy's, and he's not sure which of them he's supposed to be saying no to, but either is basically impossible. It's not like she's _wrong_. He is incapable of saying no.

"How did you get a puppy?" he asks, mostly to put off the inevitable.

"It was an accident."

"You know, I've never accidentally gotten a puppy. Not even close. How does that work?"

"Wells and Raven."

"You think you're explaining things, but you're not."

"Oh, no. I know I'm not explaining things."

The puppy wriggles free from Clarke's grasp and comes over to sniff him, which is obviously the end. He drops into a crouch so he can pet it, and its little tail is wagging so hard he's sort of worried it's going to break. It's so stupidly cute. He wasn't prepared to deal with Clarke today, let alone a dog.

"Raven and Wells went to an adoption drive, and--come on, how could I not take her?"

"Because you live in an apartment that doesn't allow pets," he says. "That's the best reason to not adopt a dog."

"That's why the dog is for you. She's great, right? I know you're lonely since Octavia moved out. A dog would be perfect. It's summer, so you're free for a few months to do training, and then when school starts up, I'll come be around to take care of her."

"I'm starting to think you got _me_ a dog. Specifically."

"She's a good fit for you. I'm just helping out."

Bellamy regards the puppy, trying to take a critical view, like she's not tiny and adorable and perfect. He's no expert on breeds or anything like that, barely knows anything about dogs except they're cute and slobbery and he's a fan of them, at least in theory. This one is in that awkward puberty stage, not just a tiny ball of fuzz, but not quite a real dog yet either, all long limbs and tripping over itself. It's black and white, fluffy, one of its ears is up and the other is down, and he kind of loves it already.

Her. She's a girl. He can start thinking of girl names.

"I don't really know how to tell," he says. "What makes a dog a good fit?"

She licks his face, nearly knocking him over in her enthusiasm, and Clarke laughs. "That, I'm pretty sure,"

"I can't believe you got me a dog," he mutters.

"I got _us_ a dog," she says, and he does not let his stomach flip. It's not allowed. "But I can't keep it, so you have to." For the first time, her confidence wavers. "You don't have to take her, though. I'm not forcing a dog on you. She's not adopted yet. I just put a hold on her, pending--"

"I want her," he says, both because Clarke looks guilty and because it seems stupid to deny it. "Just tell me what we have to do."

*

Bellamy's never had a dog before, but he has an internet connection and a general interest in animals, so he figures it can't be that hard. It's not like he didn't _want_ a dog. It was just easy to get into a kind of pet inertia, honestly. His mother always said they couldn't afford one, and it's tough to get into the mindset that he's a financially stable adult, even when he's been one for years. He can absolutely afford to have a dog.

Especially since Clarke seems determined to help out, even if her primary contribution so far is buying _every dog toy in the world_.

"All of these aren't going to fit in the house," he tells her.

"Some of them can go in the yard. Use your imagination." 

The dog is tearing around Bellamy's small yard like she has never experienced anything better in her life. Her plan seems to be to sniff every individual rock, twig, leaf, and branch, and then to run back to Clarke and Bellamy between stops to make sure they're still there. They haven't even showed her the toys yet, for fear of overloading her puppy brain.

"Have you ever had a dog before?" he asks.

"No, my parents didn't do pets. But Wells always had dogs, so I'd go over to his house and play with his."

"So this is a thing for you? I'm enabling a pattern of behavior."

"I didn't give him the dogs. Wells' parents love dogs. I just took advantage of it. You're the only person I've ever actually _gotten_ to adopt a dog."

"As long as I'm special."

She pats his arm. "You're the most special," she says. "Have you decided on a name yet?"

"Octavia said I can't be trusted to name anything, so I'm thinking something really classical and complicated just to fuck with her. Clytemnestra, maybe."

"I don't actually remember Clytemnestra, what did she do?"

"Agamemnon's wife. He was a dick, so she killed him, and then their son came back and killed her. Pretty standard Greek tragedy."

The puppy has rolled over and her tongue is lolling out of her mouth. She is about the least-threatening animal he's ever seen, including stuffed ones. He's pretty sure if someone broke into his house, she would follow them around yapping in excitement and trying to get them to pet her.

"We could call her Clyde for short," Clarke offers.

"Yeah," he agrees. "She looks like a Clyde."

*

"She's cute," Octavia says. "In terms of things you've done just because you're into Clarke, getting a dog isn't that bad."

On one level, Bellamy knows that his sister moving out after college isn't really a bigger deal than her moving out to go to college. She's only an hour away, and they talk as much as they ever have, just online instead of in person. But this is the first summer she hasn't spent in the house, and he still can't help feeling a little lonely. It feels like a huge thing, even if he knows it shouldn't.

At least the dog is helping.

"I'm glad you have a list of stupid things I've done because of Clarke. The dog is great. If I didn't want her, I wouldn't have taken her. Not everything is about Clarke."

"Yeah, but Clarke finding a dog and telling you to adopt it is basically about Clarke."

"I like her. The dog," he adds, quickly, before Octavia can make fun of him. "She's a good dog. Come on, Clyde."

Clytemnestra trots over, obedient, and jumps up into his lap. The vet said she wasn't going to be a big dog, but she's probably going to be big enough he should discourage her from being a lap dog. He absolutely isn't going to. He is a terrible dog parent.

"She's a great dog. I'm just kind of amazed that you and Clarke literally got a dog together and you're still pretending like you're totally normal friends who don't want to make out."

"I never said I don't want to make out with her. I gave up pretending I didn't a while ago. It's not my fault she hasn't noticed."

"You're pretending she doesn't want to too," Octavia says. "But the dog was her idea, right? I wouldn't tell someone to get a dog I liked unless I was planning to be there, like, all the time. It's impossible to have a dog without getting attached."

Clarke always spends a good amount of time at Bellamy's, but he'll admit that it's increased since he got the dog. But it's summer too, and she always comes over more in summer, given he's not buried under a pile of grading and alcohol, so he's not ready to say it signals an actual sea change in how they do things.

"We're already attached," he tells his sister, because he doesn't actually have any desire to talk about his non-romantic life with her. "I don't think we're going to have a violent custody fight over the dog."

"What if she gets a place where she can have a dog?"

"Then she'll probably get her own so they can be friends." It looks like she's about to argue with him, so he stands and says, "You want to come to the park with us?"

Clyde knows the word _park_ and knows it is one of her favorite words, and any protest O might have had is drowned under sheer canine enthusiasm.

Having a dog is the best.

*

Things do change once school starts. Clarke runs an art gallery in town and takes Clyde in with her while Bellamy is at school, so she won't be alone, and suddenly he's seeing her every day, without fail. Clyde is friendly and well-behaved, a popular presence at the gallery, and she becomes known as _Clarke's_. The gallery dog.

Which means when he comes to pick her up, he seems like he's Clarke's too. One of his students is a regular, and once one of them knows, all of them know, and it's much harder to come up with a good response to teenagers who think someone is your girlfriend than your sister. With Octavia he can just play it cool; with the kids, it's weird.

"Just go with it," Clarke advises.

"With what?"

"If you deny it, they'll just think there's a story there. If you say you have a girlfriend, it's not really anything. No drama. They'll let it go."

She's fighting with Clyde over a rope chew toy, so she has a perfectly good reason to not be looking at him. But it still feels like she's _not looking_.

Or he's just being stupid. That could be happening too.

"You think I should tell my high school classes that you're my girlfriend?"

"Just if they ask." She worries her lip. "Seriously, best friends who co-own a dog is just going to raise more questions than it answers. No one is going to believe that."

"What do you tell people?" he asks.

"Boyfriend's dog. Unless they seem like they might be conservative, then I go for girlfriend. Thanks for having a gender-neutral name."

He wets his lips, unsure how to respond to that one. "You're welcome?"

She finally looks at him, a faint flush on her cheeks. "Sorry, I can stop saying that. It's just--"

"Easier," he says. "Yeah, no, I get it. I don't mind. Just--didn't know." He rubs the back of his neck. "I guess if my students thought I was dating the art gallery lady, they'd stop spreading rumors about how I'm dating another teacher."

"That's the spirit. But, seriously, I can stop."

"No, don't," he says. "It's fine. Pretty easy to clear up if one of us starts dating, right? Just tell them it was easier than explaining the real situation to strangers."

"I take care of your dog during the day," Clarke agrees. "Normal, best-friend stuff." She scratches Clyde behind the ears. "You're happy you got her, right? She's not too much trouble?"

He smiles. "She's the best, yeah."

Clarke's smile is stronger now, and he hopes the awkwardness has passed. "Yeah. I think so too."

*

He's not planning to mention the girlfriend thing to his students, because he never talks to them about his personal life, but one of them asks, and he's not going to _deny it_. Not when Clarke's already telling people and she gave him permission and he gets to pretend.

O might be right. His life might be stupid, at this point.

The thing about dating Clarke is that he doesn't know how to just _do it_. They met through his friend Miller, who was dating his friend Monty, and they turned from bickering into affection so gradually that he didn't even quite realize they were friends, and then he didn't want to ruin it.

He still doesn't want to ruin it. And he can't imagine just _dating _her. He doesn't know how he's supposed to just ask her out on a date, like they're strangers. Like he hasn't been in love with her for years.__

__That's the part Octavia wasn't wrong about--the dog does feel like _something_ , even before he finds out Clarke is casually telling anyone who asks that they're dating. That's not _normal_. He knows it's not._ _

__But it's not like Clyde gives him any more of an idea how to ask her out than he had before. Their relationship is getting weirder and weirder, but it's a purely lateral move. Or at least--fuck, he doesn't even know. It's not getting any more romantic. Just more entangled._ _

__"I should just tell her I want to marry her, right?" he asks the dog. "Or I could ask her to move in. So she can spend more time with you. And then--once we're living together it would just work itself out. That's definitely how it works."_ _

__Clyde raises her head, which is at least distracting, because she has his glasses in her mouth. _Again_._ _

__"Jesus, Clyde," he mutters, and goes over to pry them out. He doesn't know how she _finds them_ ; she must have pried his case open to get there, which is a level of effort that is frankly stunning. What kind of dog cares that much about eating glasses? "No," he says, firm, holding up the mangled glasses and glaring at her. "Bad dog."_ _

__The last time she got them, they weren't ruined, but this time it's really, really bad. Bellamy doesn't wear his glasses often, but they're kind of expensive and he likes having them as backup, so he really needs to come up with a solution to _my dog wants to eat my glasses all the time_._ _

__As with most things, his first step is to ask Clarke. The next day is Saturday, but he and Clyde still tend to hang out at the gallery, because Clyde is an attraction and he'll take any excuse, so he wanders in firs thing in the morning and says, "We need to work on dog training."_ _

__"What did she--" Clarke starts, and drops the bowl she's holding. Clyde, helpfully, runs over to chew on it._ _

__He groans. "Fuck, Clyde, come on. No. Drop it."_ _

__At least she _does_ , coming back to him with her tail wagging, clearly guilty. He leans down to scratch her and cocks his head at Clarke. She looks more unnerved than he's seen in a while._ _

__"What?"_ _

__"What?" she asks, way too breezy._ _

__"Something on my face?" he offers._ _

__"Well--glasses."_ _

__"Oh, yeah. That's the problem. This is my spare pair. I decided I need to wear them until we figure out a plan."_ _

__"I didn't know you wore glasses."_ _

__"I usually don't, but Clyde actually pried the case open and ate my regular pair, so--seriously, how do we train her to not do that?"_ _

__Clarke is still watching him, her expression unreadable. "What does your regular pair look like?"_ _

__"What?"_ _

__"The other glasses. Are they the same kind or--"_ _

__"Uh, they're thinner frames, I guess? I don't know how to describe them. Why?"_ _

__She shakes her head, like she's trying to wake herself up. "Just curious. Okay, so--we need to figure out how to keep her from eating them? Did you google it?"_ _

__"Not yet," he says, and he lets her change the subject, but he keeps catching her watching him out of the corner of her eye, her gaze sticking on--his glasses. He's pretty sure._ _

__It's been a long time since he thought about his glasses. When he was a kid, they got on his nerves, because they were always the wrong prescription, always the wrong style. He'd considered it a major sign of success when he could afford to keep himself in contacts, and he never thought about not doing it._ _

__Well, not until Clarke can't stop looking at him._ _

__They come up with a plan to teach the dog to leave his glasses alone, including _decoy glasses_ to test her, and then he leaves her with Clarke while he runs errands._ _

__Which, in this case, is just going and getting a new pair of glasses, a nice one. One he could wear all the time._ _

__Just in case._ _

__*_ _

__Clarke selflessly volunteers to come over and monitor his glasses with him, which mostly just means they're watching Netflix together while the dog sleeps and he's trying to figure out how to deal with the information that she's really, really into his glasses. He's pretty sure. It's not just wishful thinking._ _

__"She's not really that teachable," he finally observes._ _

__"Hm?" asks Clarke. She was leaning on him, and when she stirs and tries to sit up, he puts her arm around her. It's all she needs to settle back in, and Bellamy feels his whole body sparking with hope._ _

__"I'm not sure there's a good way to teach the dog to stay away from my glasses when we're not around. She knows better than to try it when I'm here, but--"_ _

__"I guess you don't really want to tempt her," Clarke says._ _

__"I could just start wearing them," he says. "All the time. So she can't eat them."_ _

__This time, when Clarke jerks up, he lets her, grinning at her startled expression._ _

__"What?" he asks, all innocence. "You don't like them?"_ _

__"All the time?"_ _

__"Constantly," he agrees, pushing them up when they slip. "Every time you see me from now on, glasses. Just to keep them safe."_ _

__"Yeah," Clarke agrees. "That would probably be a good idea. It's--safer. Can't be too careful."_ _

__He bites the corner of his mouth, trying not to grin. "Glad you approve. I couldn't tell if you liked them. You were being so subtle about it."_ _

__Her scowl is more adorable than angry, and when he kisses her, she responds instantly, throwing her arms around him and grinning so hard she can't actually respond very well. But the idea gets across._ _

__"That's what it took? I just had to stare at you?" she asks, laughing. "I do that all the time. I got you _a dog_ , Bellamy, and I told everyone you were my boyfriend and you didn't even--"_ _

__He cups her cheek, kissing her again, soft and warm, like he's always wanted to. "You know, some people would have just asked."_ _

__"Yeah, but then you wouldn't have a dog." She taps the side of his glasses with her finger. "And I wouldn't have known about these."_ _

__"You would have found out the first time you slept over."_ _

__Her smile is so fucking _pleased_. "Yeah, okay. But you wouldn't have the dog."_ _

__"We wouldn't have the dog," he corrects. "She's yours too. You're not getting out of it now."_ _

__She curls into him, pressing her face against his neck, laughing. "No. Not getting out of it now."_ _


End file.
